Ghost Gum Valley (34 page)

‘Anything you can do,
I can do
,' Isabel snapped.

‘I just might take you up on that!'

Recognising the innuendo in his voice, Isabel turned her head to conceal her blush.

They passed a drystone wall that reminded Isabel of the traditional borders of the fields beyond de Rolland Park. Here the land had clearly fallen into misuse.

Isabel was startled by the bizarre sight at the heart of it. Standing in splendid isolation against the sky was a cone-shaped tower built of variegated stones.

‘Good Heavens, that looks like the sort of folly you'd find in one of Capability Browne's landscaped gardens.'

‘It's a copy. That chimney over there is the ruins of an Indian bungalow built by my grandfather. He was a retired British Army colonel whose heart remained with the Raj in India. When Mother married she moved to Garnet's adjoining property but
her
heart remained on Mingaletta. The colonel survived years of warfare only to be defeated by a bank. He neglected to tell Mother her dowry, Mingaletta, was mortgaged to the hilt. When he went bankrupt he took the coward's way out. Shot himself through the heart. Father bought Mingaletta from the bank. That's how the deeds to Mother's land were swallowed up by Bloodwood Hall under Garnet's name
.'

‘What a tragic story. But if Heaven exists, and I believe it does, your mother will be happy to see Mingaletta back in your hands at last.'

Marmaduke's face darkened. ‘Mother was
never
happy. She was married to Garnet.'

Isabel felt the force of his suppressed rage as she rode behind him towards a miniature garden fenced off by the kind of wrought-iron lace Isabel had seen on Sydney terrace houses. It was then Isabel saw it. The tombstone carved with a plump cherub. She followed in Marmaduke's footsteps to read the weathered stone inscription.

 

H
ERE
L
IES THE
B
ELOVED
W
IFE OF
G
ARNET
G
AMBLE
M
IRANDA

B
ORN
F
ORT
W
ILLIAM
, C
ALCUTTA
D
IED AGE
36
AT
B
LOODWOOD
H
ALL
1825

I
N THE
A
RMS OF HER
H
USBAND

A
LSO

T
HEIR INFANT

M
AY
A
NGELS
G
UARD THEIR
R
ESTING
P
LACE

 

‘In the arms of her husband – that's a joke!' Marmaduke said coldly. ‘Mother only stayed with Garnet because the damned law grants custody of a child to its father. If
I
'd been born dead she would have been free to leave him.'

Isabel had no words to lance the pain she realised, with shock, had festered inside him for years.

Embarrassed by his outburst, Marmaduke's mood changed like quicksilver. ‘Come, soldier,' he said lightly. ‘We'll take a short cut through the Gamble family cemetery – not afraid of ghosts, are you?'

Isabel bit her lip at the sudden flood of childhood memories of the Other that had broken through the borders of reality the day she had seen the ghost of Henri de Rolland leap to his death.

She shivered at the sight of graves that perhaps were linked to the ghosts said to haunt Bloodwood Hall. Would she attract them, too? And would she even
know
they were ghosts?

Despite her anxiety she was moved by the knowledge that Miranda Gamble had not been buried here, but on her own land, Mingaletta.

The little graveyard was shielded by a windbreak of fir trees. Marmaduke halted the horses but remained in the saddle. He gestured to a mausoleum built in the style of a small Greek temple complete with pediment and Doric columns.

‘Garnet controls every aspect of life and death. He's obsessed with building things bigger and flashier than anyone else. He designed this ready for his final journey, dictated his own inscription to the stonemason. All that remains to be added is the date of his death. Even Father can't control that!'

The mausoleum made Isabel distinctly uneasy. Nightfall had
appeared like a sleight of hand. The Australian bush was eerie enough by day but terrifying by night. There was no long English twilight to soften the transition. She froze. Was it a trick of the full moon? Or was there a light shining through the door of Garnet Gamble's tomb?

Isabel's throat was so tight she could barely ask the question. ‘What's that light?'

‘Let's hope it's Father's ghost!' Marmaduke said lightly.

As they approached on foot, Isabel instinctively drew closer to him. Her breath came fast as if she had been running. The atmosphere felt thick with acrid emotion. She peered around Marmaduke's shoulder, shielded from sight but able to see through the aperture. Light flickered from an oil lamp that threw ghastly shadows around the burial chamber. Isabel felt the hair bristling up on the back of her neck.

Kneeling beside a stone sarcophagus was an old woman dressed in an orange sari. Her rasping chant sounded too malevolent to be a prayer. Unaware of them watching her she took the lamp and hurried off down a path where the night concealed her from sight.

‘That's Queenie, my old nanny. She blames Garnet for Mother's death. She comes here to pray for
his
death.'

Isabel was shocked into silence.
I don't doubt evil things did happen here. I can sense the aura of hatred in this place.

‘I'll introduce you to Queenie tomorrow. No need to be afraid of her. She was Mother's faithful servant since they were children in India. She's as tiny as an elf, but she protected mother like a warrior. Queenie's the one person strong enough to call Garnet's bluff. I'd trust her with my life.'

Isabel was exhausted. The previous night and the past weeks had produced a chain of revelations so complex she felt too weary to make sense of them.

‘Journey's end. Home, sweet home,' Marmaduke announced with undisguised sarcasm. In the distance the outline of Bloodwood Hall loomed up through a slit in the dank mist that sealed off the valley. She knew it wasn't the chill night air or the shadows cast by the full moon that caused her to shiver. It was an instinctive sense of foreboding.

When they passed through a pair of iron gates the sound of their closing left Isabel in an acute panic, as if a dungeon door had clanged shut to imprison her.

Bloodwood Hall seemed to rear out of the darkness.

The Gothic stone mansion was blanched by moonlight. For a moment she lost all sense of time and place. Was she sleepwalking in a nightmare? Was she really here in this godforsaken Colony?

Marmaduke sprang to her side. ‘What's wrong? You're deathly pale.'

Her words tumbled out beyond her control. ‘My God! Don't you know? This isn't
your
family home – it's
ours
! It's a replica of de Rolland Park!'

Overcome by a sickening wave of nausea Isabel reeled backwards. Marmaduke caught her in his arms.

Isabel stirred and her eyes focused on a flash of silver. Marmaduke's flask touched her lips and the brandy gave her a pleasurable burning sensation, proof she was still alive. She lay on the lawn swathed in Marmaduke's greatcoat, his arm firmly around her shoulders.

‘You've had quite a shock,
déjà vu
gone crazy. This place is so bloody Gothic and English I always thought it was just a hodge-podge of Garnet's ideas of Gothic Revival. How was I to know he had recreated your ancestral home? Now his obsession makes sense. I take it this is a dead-ringer?' At Isabel's frown he translated, ‘Identical.'

Isabel was still bewildered. ‘It's slightly smaller in scale. Seven bays instead of nine. And the stone seems warmer in colour. But it's a remarkable copy. The same Gothic lines, chimneys, balconies, gables; the castellated widow's walk. Why would your father go to such trouble to recreate the house of a family he didn't even know?'

Marmaduke raised one eyebrow. ‘Didn't your illustrious family tell you
anything
?'

‘Do you mean to say he actually knew my family?'

‘Knew 'em? He was their servant. Godfrey was the bloke who had him transported.'

Isabel was appalled. ‘Oh my God! How your father must hate us.'

Marmaduke's head was so close to hers she could feel his breath against her cheek.

‘You can't stop now, Marmaduke. Why was he transported?'

‘He was a go-between, carrying love letters from Godfrey's sister to her lover—'

‘Aunt Elisabeth!' Isabel was shocked at how easily the pieces fell into place. She told him how her guardian had cut his sister off without a penny after her unsuitable marriage.

Marmaduke nodded. ‘That fits. When Godfrey de Rolland discovered Garnet's role in the plot he had him arrested for theft. False evidence was provided by Silas de Rolland. The magistrate accepted an aristocrat's word against his illiterate servan'st – surprise, surprise! That's how young George copped fourteen years for the “theft” of a ring he claims Elisabeth gave him as a gift of thanks. That garnet ring earned Father his Australian nickname, Garnet.'

Isabel was stunned by her family's role in Garnet Gamble's downfall.

‘So why was he so determined to buy a de Rolland bride for you?'

‘Don't you see? Garnet grabbed his destiny with both hands. Despite being illiterate his sharp business practices built his fortune. By hook and
definitely
by crook he recreated the world he had envied in England. You represent Garnet's sublime act of revenge. A convicted felon has saved from debtor's prison the man who had him transported. And gained a trophy – a wife for his son. Garnet triumphed. He made the de Rolland family eat dirt!'

‘Yes, but my family had their own revenge by sending me!' she said bitterly.

‘Nonsense. Your blood's still blue, isn't it? Let's get you ready to make your big entrance.'

Marmaduke grabbed her by the hand and ran with her to the front door. Standing before the lion's-head doorknocker, he paused to whisper his final instructions.

‘Don't forget, soldier. Keep your intense dislike of me for when we're alone. In public lie through your teeth. Lay it on thick. You
adore
me!
'

Chapter 24

The entrance to the Gamble mansion was a pair of massive timber doors surmounted by an elaborate fanlight. Marmaduke presumed this must be a replica of de Rolland Park's doorway except that it was crowned with the entwined letters
GG
. The brass doorknocker bore the head of the Royal Lion of England.

Marmaduke saw himself as a toddler in Queenie's arms playing the game in which he roared like a lion before he rapped the lion's head. Linked to the echo of Queenie's laughter, this was a rare happy memory in a house full of dark secrets.

Like a child ‘whistling in the dark' to give himself courage, Marmaduke again roared like a lion. The door was opened by Bridget.

‘It's you! Ye scared the living daylights out of me. We've been living in fear of bushrangers coming to overhaul us.'

Marmaduke handed her the saddlebags. ‘No need to announce our arrival, Bridget. Show
Mrs
Gamble
to her room and help her change. Assist her in every way she requires.'

He planted a light kiss on Isabel's cheek. ‘Welcome to our
humble
home, Isabel.'

Bridget looked Isabel over before addressing Marmaduke. ‘The master's in the green drawing room.'

Marmaduke crossed the marble floor of the atrium that lay between the east and west wings of the house. Glancing up at the windows of the second-storey picture gallery, he fancied that the painted ancestral faces were eyeing his progress.

The predicted storm had broken. Flashes of sheet lightning bathed everything through the domed skylight that straddled the atrium, throwing into relief the sandstone walls and indented alcoves framing Greek statues of naked Olympians and half-naked goddesses. Alternating pedestals held urns of tropical ferns with withered fronds that never thrived.

Nothing will ever enjoy health and happiness in this accursed house.

At the far end of the atrium Marmaduke squared his shoulders before throwing open the double doors. He knew exactly what lay ahead of him.

The green drawing room was exactly as Marmaduke remembered. The décor was so grandiose that Napoleon Bonaparte himself would not have looked out of place. Except that the Emperor's
N
was substituted by the double
G
emblazoned on every conceivable space – marble fireplace, tapestry backs of French Empire chairs, etched on crystal and silverware.